HOW IT WAS DONE.
LOSSY came quite down the broad aisle to the seat which the girls had, by tacit understanding, chosen for their own, her face just radiant with a sort of surprised satisfaction, and the gentleman who followed her with an assured and measured step was none other than Judge Erskine himself. He may have been surprised at his own appearance in that place for prayer, but no surprise of his could compare with the amazement of his daughter Ruth. For once in her life her well-bred composure forsook her, and her look could be called nothing less than an absolute stare.
Of the four, Flossy only had succeeded. The way of it was this:
Having become a realist, in the most emphatic sense of that word, to have promised to bring some one with her to meeting if she possibly could, meant to her just that, and nothing less than that. Of course, such an understanding of a promise made it impossible to stop with the asking of one person, or two, or three, provided her invitations met with only refusals.
She had started out as confident of success as Eurie; she felt nearly certain of Col. Baker; not because he was any more likely of his own will to choose the prayer-meeting than he had been all his life thus far, but because he was growing every day more anxious to give pleasure to Flossy.
Having some dim sense of this in her heart, Flossy reasoned that it would be right to put this power of hers to the good use of winning him to the meeting, for who could tell what words from God's Spirit might reach him while there? So she asked him to go.
To her surprise, and to Col. Baker's real annoyance, he was obliged to refuse her. He was more than willing to go, even to a prayer-meeting, if thereby he could take one step forward toward the place in her life that he desired to fill. Therefore his regrets were profuse and sincere.
It was club night, and, most unluckily, they were to meet with him, and he was to provide the entertainment. Under almost any other circumstances he could have been excused. Had he even had the remotest idea that Flossy would have liked his company that evening, he could have made arrangements for a change of evening for the club; that is, had he known of it earlier. But, as it was, she would see how impossible it would be for him to get away. Quick-witted Flossy took him at his word.
"Would he remember, then," she asked, with her most winning smile, "that of all places where she could possibly like to see him regularly, the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting at the First Church was the place."
What a bitter pill an evening prayer-meeting would be to Col. Baker! But he did not tell her so. He was even growing to think that he could do that, for a while at least.
From him Flossy turned to her brother; but it was club night to him, too, and while he had not the excuse that the entertainer of the club certainly had, it served very well as an excuse, though he was frank enough to add, "As for that, I don't believe I should go if I hadn't an engagement; I won't be hypocrite enough to go to the prayer-meeting." Such strange ideas have some otherwise sensible people on this subject of hypocrisy!
It required a good deal of courage for Flossy to ask her mother, but she accomplished it, and received in reply an astonished stare, a half-embarrassed laugh, and the expression:
"What an absurd little fanatic you are getting to be, Flossy! I am sure one wouldn't have looked for it in a child like you! Me? Oh, dear, no! I can't go; I never walk so far you know; at least very rarely, and Kitty will have the carriage in use for Mrs. Waterman's reception. Why don't you go there, child? It really isn't treating Mrs. Waterman well; she is such an old friend."
These were a few of the many efforts which Flossy made. They met with like results, until at last the evening in question found her somewhat belated and alone, ringing at Judge Erskine's mansion. That important personage being in the hall, in the act of going out to the post-office, he opened the door and met her hurried, almost breathless, question:
"Judge Erskine, is Ruth gone? Oh, excuse me. Good-evening. I am in such haste that I forgot courtesy. Do you think Ruth is gone?"
Yes, Judge Erskine knew that his daughter was out, for she stepped into the library to leave a message a few moments ago, and she was then dressed for the street, and had passed out a moment afterward.
Then did he know whether Katie Flinn, the chamber-maid, was in? "Of course you won't know," she added, blushing and smiling at the absurdity of her question. "I mean could you find out for me whether she is in, and can I speak to her just a minute?"
He was fortunately wiser to-night than she gave him credit for being, Judge Erskine said, with a courtly bow and smile.
It so happened that just after his daughter departed, Katie had sought him, asking permission to be out that evening until nine o'clock, a permission that she had forgotten to secure of his daughter; therefore, as a most unusual circumstance which must have occurred for Flossy's special benefit, he was posted even as to Katie's whereabouts. He was unprepared for the sudden flushing of Flossy's cheeks, and quiver of her almost baby chin.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said, and there were actual tears in her blue eyes.
Judge Erskine saw them, and felt as if he were in some way a monster. He hastened to be sympathetic. If she was alone and timid it would afford him nothing but pleasure to see her safely to any part of the city she chose to mention. He was going out simply for a stroll, with no business whatever.
"Oh, it isn't that," Flossy said, hastily. "I am such a little way from the chapel, and it is so early I shall not be afraid; but I am so disappointed. You see, Judge Erskine, we girls were each to bring one with us to the meeting to-night, and I have tried so hard, I have asked almost a dozen people, and none of them could go. At last I happened to think of your Katie Flinn: I knew she was in our Sunday-school, and I thought perhaps if I asked her she would go with me, if Ruth had not done it before me. She was my last chance, and I am more disappointed than I can tell you."
Shall I try to describe to you what a strange sensation Judge Erskine felt in the region of his heart as he stood there in the hall with that pretty blushing girl, who seemed to him only a child, and found that her quivering chin and swimming eyes meant simply that she had failed in securing even his chambermaid to attend the prayer-meeting? He never remembered to have had such an astonishing feeling, nor such a queer choking sensation in his throat.
His own daughter was dignified and stately; the very picture of her father, every one said; he had no idea that she could shed a tear any more than he could himself; but this timid, flushing, trembling little girl seemed made of some other material than just the clay that he supposed himself to be composed of.
He stood regarding her with a sort of pleased wonder. In common with many other stately gentlemen, he very much admired real, unaffected, artless childhood. It seemed to him that a grieved child stood before him. How could he comfort her? If a doll, now, with curling hair and blue eyes could do it, how promptly should it be bought and given to this flesh-and-blood doll before him.
But no, nothing short of some one to accompany her to prayer-meeting would appease this little troubled bit of humanity. In the magnanimity of his haughty heart the learned judge took a sudden and almost overpowering resolution.
Could he go? he asked her. To be sure, he was not Katie Flinn, but he would do his best to take the place of that personage if she would kindly let him go to the said meeting with her.
It was worth a dozen sittings even in prayer-meeting, Judge Erskine thought, to see the sudden clearing of that tearful face; the sudden radiant outlook from those wet eyes.
Would he go? Would he really go? Could anything be more splendid!
And, verily, Judge Erskine thought, as he beheld her shining face, that there hardly could. He felt precisely as you do when you have been unselfish toward a pretty child, who, someway, has won a warm spot in your heart.
He went to the First Church prayer-meeting for the first time with no higher motive than that—never mind, he went. Flossy Shipley certainly was not responsible for the motive of his going; neither did it in any degree affect the honest, earnest, persistent effort she had made that day. Her account of it was simple enough, when the girls met afterward to talk over their efforts.
"Why, you know," she said, "I actually promised to bring some one with me if I possibly could; so there was nothing for it but to try in every possible way up to the very last minute of the time I had. But, after all, I brought the one whom I had not the least idea of asking; he asked himself."
"Well," Marion said, after a period of amazed silence, "I have made two discoveries. One is, that people may possibly have tried before this to enlarge the prayer-meeting; possibly we may not, after all, be the originators of that brilliant idea; they may have tried, and failed even as we did; for I have learned that it is not so easy a matter as it at first appears; it needs a power behind the wills of people to get them to do even so simple a thing as that. The other important thought is, there are two ways of keeping a promise; one is to make an attempt and fail, saying to our contented consciences, 'There! I've done my duty, and it is no use you see;' and the other is to persist in attempt after attempt, until the very pertinacity of our faith accomplishes the work for us. What if we follow the example of our little Flossy after this, and let a promise mean something?"
"My example!" Flossy said, with wide open eyes. "Why, I only asked people, just as I said I would; but they wouldn't come."
There was one young lady who walked home from that eventful prayer-meeting with a very unsatisfied conscience. Ruth Erskine could not get away from the feeling that she was a shirker; all the more so, because the person who had sat very near her was her father! not brought there by any invitation from her; it was not that she had tried and failed; that form of it would have been an infinite relief; she simply had not tried, and she made herself honestly confess to herself that the trouble was, she could not be satisfied with one who was within the reach of her asking.
Yet conscience, working all alone, is a very uncomfortable and disagreeable companion, and often accomplishes for the time being nothing beyond making his victim disagreeable. This was Ruth to the fullest extent of her power; she realized it, and in a measure felt ashamed of herself, and struggled a little for a better state of mind.
It seemed ill payment for the courtesy which had made Harold Wayne forsake the club before supper for the purpose of walking home with her from church. He was unusually kind, too, and patient. Part of her trouble, be it known, was her determination in her heart not to be driven by that dreadful conscience into saying a single personal word to Harold Wayne. Not that she put it in that way; bless you, no! Satan rarely blunders enough to speak out plainly; he has a dozen smooth-sounding phrases that mean the same thing.
"People need to be approached very carefully on very special occasions, which are not apt to occur; they need to be approached by just such persons, and in just such well-chosen words," etc. etc.
Though why it should require such infinite tact and care and skill to say to a friend, "I wish you were going to heaven with me," when the person would say without the slightest hesitation, "I wish you were going to Europe with me," and be accounted an idiot if he made talk about tact and skill and caution, I am sure I don't know.
Yet all these things Ruth said to herself. The reason the thought ruffled her was because her honest conscience knew they were false, and that she had a right to say, "Harold, I wish you were a Christian;" and had no right at all with the results.
She simply could not bring herself to say it; she did not really know why, herself; probably Satan did.
Mr. Wayne was unusually quiet and grave; he seemed to be doing what he could to lead Ruth into serious talk; he asked about the meeting, whether there were many out, and whether she enjoyed it.
"I sort of like Dr. Dennis," he said. "He is tremendously in earnest; but why shouldn't a man be in earnest if he believes what he is talking about. Do you suppose he does, Ruth?"
"Of course," Ruth said, shortly, almost crossly; "you know he does. Why do you ask such a foolish question?"
"Oh, I don't know; half the time it seems to me as if the religious people were trying to humbug the world; because, you see, they don't act as if they were in dead earnest—very few of them do, at least."
"That is a very easy thing to say, and people seem to be fond of saying it," Ruth said: and then she simply would not talk on that subject or any other; she was miserably unhappy; an awakened conscience, toyed with, is a very fruitful source of misery. She was glad when the walk was concluded.
"Shall I come in?" Mr. Wayne asked, lingering on the step, half smiling, half wistful. "What do you advise, shall I go back to the club or call on you?"
Now, Ruth hated that club; she was much afraid of its influence over her friend; she had determined, as soon as she could plan a line of operation, to set systematically at work to withdraw him from its influence; but she was not ready for it yet. And, among other things that she was not ready for, was a call from Mr. Wayne; it seemed to her that in her present miserable, unsettled state it would be simply impossible to carry on a conversation with him. True to her usually frank nature, she answered, promptly:
"I have certainly no desire for you to go to the club, either on this evening or any other; but, to be frank, I would rather be alone this evening; I want to think over some matters of importance, and to decide them. You will not think strangely of me for saying that, will you?"
"Oh, no," he said, and he smiled kindly on her; yet he was very much disappointed; he showed it in his face.
Many a time afterward, as Ruth sat thinking over this conversation, recalling every little detail of it, recalling the look on his face, and the peculiar sadness in his eyes, she thought within herself, "If I had said, 'Harold, I want you to come in; I want to talk with you; I want you to decide now to live for Christ,' I wonder what he would have answered."
But she did not say it. Instead, she turned from him and went into the house; and—he went directly to his club: an unaccountable gloom hung over him; he must have companionship; if not with his chosen and promised wife, then with the club. That was just what Ruth was to him; and it was one of the questions that tormented her.
There were reasons why thought about it had forced itself upon her during the last few days. She was pledged to him long before she found this new experience. The question was, Could she fulfil those pledges? Had they a thought in common now? Could she live with him the sort of life that she had promised to live, and that she solemnly meant to live? If she could, was it right to do so? You see she had enough to torment her; only she set about thinking of it in so strange a manner; not at all as she would have thought about it if the pledges she had given him had meant to her all that they mean to some, all that they ought to mean to any one who makes them. This phase of it also troubled her.
